Spring Beauty

We interrupt the parade of Knitting Bags to bring you this beauty from my kitchen windowsill on Sunday morning last.

Despite the bizarre weather we've been having around here, frost, sleet, storms etc, we've also had the occasional morning of brilliant spring sunshine.

And the daffodils have been glorious!

These are courtesy of my beloved sister in Portarlington. Thanks H!

Enjoy.

Knitting Bag Three

Here's another from my collection of knitting bags.

It's a heavy-ish cardboard suitase that I got in Avoca Handweavers last December. It's about a foot wide. (Sorry, none left, they sold out very quickly.!)

I didn't exactly NEED it, but could I resist that printed stocking stitches in those Andy Warhol-y colours? You bet I couldn't.



And it holds quite a lot too.

Here's the Louisa Harding Grace & Wool scarf swatch which I mentioned in January. (BTW, this picture is a far truer representation of the colour than the bluey image in the earlier post.)

It's great for holding sharp pointy things (like dpns) that otherwise might poke through a fabric bag and stab you in the leg when you're trying to feed children and knit at the same time. It happens.

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Glorious Manos

Ah the glory that is Manos!



The beret in Manos del Uruguay, she is finished....and isn't she just beootiful?!?! I've never had so many compliments over a knit project before....even for Ms Potters. Mind you, I've never worn a knit project so much either, so there's probably a connection.



Project Details:

Pattern: BOHO Beret from Artesano
Yarn: haven't you been paying attention?
OK, so it's Manos del Uruguay, Silk Blend

More Yarn details: 100g hank is 270m long. (Beret used just a shade over 1/2 the skein)
Needles: Recommended size for the yarn is 3.5mm - 4.25mm.
The pattern called for size 3mm dnps for the brim and 3.75m dpns for the hat. I used Brittany Birch needles from here. Lovely and smooth, much nicer than bamboo.
Colourway: Red

This was a reasonably quick and easy knit. The yarn is fabulous, and it was great to see all the colour variations appearing. Lovely.

See the purl rounds? This is where most of the increase and decrease rounds are placed in the pattern. I didn't like the slight jog this made in the round of purl bumps so I moved the increased/decreases to the following round. You can still see the increases/decreases, but at least the pearly purls are preserved.

The brim turned out slightly too loose. Who knew my head wasn't so big? I used some black elastic thread to give it more grip. (Thanks Mum.)

I only had one problem. You sharper knitters may not have fallen into this trap, but I did. Headfirst. (Headfirst...ha ha!)

The pattern called for the brim to be knit with 2 strands of the yarn in garter stitch. Now, I'm no ordinary eedjit, I know that garter stitch means that you knit all rows. So I did.

Ah hah! Spot the rookie mistake? Since the hat is knit in the round, knitting all rows, (i.e. rounds) gives you reverse stocking stitch. Given that I'm on 3mm dpns and knitting with 2 strands this resulted in an unpleasant stiff and unyielding band of fabric.

I lived with it for a while and knitted on despite my doubts...as you do. About 3 inches into knitting the hat I bit the bullet and frogged the whole thing. It would have been about as comfortable as wearing a luggage strap around your head. My thanks to Jellyknits for the moral support while this painful decision was made.

Anyway, it had to be done. And as it so often happens, frogging it and starting again gave me the beautiful outcome I had dreamed of. I love it.

And look see.



It goes so nicely with my scarf.

Matchy matchy.


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16 five year olds could power a small town with kid energy

Phew!

On top of my normal job as a working/knitting mother and the craziness that involves, I recently became involved in organising a Craft Club at Little Monkey's school. Naturally I offered to teach knitting to whatever group of kids were interested. I won't bore you with details of the process, but it led me last week to a room full of noisy and enthusiastic 5 year olds and a sack of spare yarn.

Sixteen of them to be exact. (Some of them were 4 and a 1/2 and some were 5 and a 1/2. Not to be pedantic, but it matters to the kids, believe me.)

Anyhow, since I only had 2 classes of an hour each, it became obvious that I would not be able to teach the kids to knit in the time available, so I decided to stick with finger knitting and making pompoms. (I'm so glad this occurred to me before I had armed 16 children with 32 sharp pointy sticks.)

The finger knitting I was happy enough with, but I was kinda hoping that making pompoms would come back to me easily after a hiatus of oh....I dunno...30 years or so? Not so. I spent several frustrating hours making pathetic lumps of short yarn pieces which fell apart instantly. I had the 2 circles of cardboard alright, I had remembered that much. So I turned to the trusty Internet for salvation and I found some great instructions which cleared up the issue. (Can't find the link now, sorry.)

Basically I hadn't been winding on nearly enough yarn to make a pompom ball - what I was getting was more like a yarn bagel. Added to that another tip, which was to use double or triple lengths of yarn for a speedy result, and bingo, problem solved. This method has the added advantage of allowing you to use more than one colour or type of yarn, which gave pretty good results.

So...we got through the finger knitting unscathed and 1/2 way through the pompoms in teh 1st class. Next week we'll finish up the pompoms and string them together. I've enjoyed the classes so far and I think there will be more in the future.

Not that I'll be making something like this anytime soon, tho' I'll admit it's kinda cute.



For anyone interested, the Club also provided a Card Making/Scrapbooking course to the kids aged 7-9 or so and a basic Mosaic course to the older kids, 10-12 year olds. These are being taught by 2 wonderful craft teachers and happily the kids are having a ball. Anyone interested in sourcing these teachers for similar courses, just give me a shout in the comments or by email at nicknits AT gmail DOT com.

Joseph And His Amazing...

Let me introduce you to something special....

The Joseph Jumper. (Yes, I know you might prefer that be 'sweater', not 'jumper', but it's a jumper, OK? And clearly a Joseph one at that.)



Amazing, isn't it?

It's funny, but since we only meet in blogland (mostly), there's a lot we don't know about each other. This is one of the interesting things about blogs, I find, the getting to know someone over time, through what they reveal about themselves, and what they knit/craft/photograph/paint create etc.

And of course, knitting blogs in particular yield people we are likely to be friends with - since we already know that knitters are fab. Cos they just are.

There's a story attached to this picture of course.

The Joseph Jumper is an integral part of my knitting heritage. I consider myself to be fairly unusual in that I have not one but two knitting parents. Both my Mum & Dad have knitted all my life, and most of theirs too. I can include sewing, dressmaking, quilting & rugmaking in this too, but that's besides the point for now. Let's just say that they're pretty crafty.

The upside of this (and there is no downside) is that I have seen them knit practically everything you can think of. And they are fearless knitters indeed, who baulk at nothing. Watching them knit has instilled a number of things in me, the sheer love of it for instance and the endless possibilities. Also the philosophy that something has to be done 'right'. That doesn't at all mean perfectly, or even nicely, but right according to the spirit of the thing.

If there's a mistake somewhere's and you notice it...just face it early and go back and fix it before you're miles on. Don't knit on just because you can't bear to stop...or worse, start over, muttering 'Ah sure it doesn't matter'. If you get a mis-twisted cable, or a knot, or a dropped stitch in the wrong place, or it's too long, short or doesn't sit right...and it bothers you....you MUST fix it, or forever be haunted by it. You may choose to be haunted of course, for lots of perfectly good reasons, but just be aware that it will never go away.

This attitude leads to a certain amout of pain in the short term, tinking and frogging, but it leads to more contentment in the end. You could see it as a good philosophy of life too, but I'll leave that up to yourselves.

Anyway, I have strayed a little from my story.

Many years ago, my Dad, as I've said, an utterly fearless knitter, decided to make a jumper for himself out of rag wool. All the bits 'n 'pieces left over from years of knitting projects - perhaps a lifetime of them. So, he knit himself a Joseph Jumper - after he of the amazing technicolour etc etc. This jumper is a thing of wonder, with more colours than you can count, not in stripes as one might expect, but in many blocks and shapes that wander about the fabric, sending out fingers of colour in diagonals, snaking around corners and crashing into other colours in a wonderful way.

The Joseph Jumper shown here isn't his, by the way, it's mine.

The original jumper was such a success, that it spawned a whole family of them. Each of my siblings has one, as does my Mum of course. Her's is special, in that it has cables made from different colours twined around each other. As we siblings found ourselves in couples, each son- and daughter-in-law got one too. In vain did friends beg for a Joseph of their own. No, they had to marry in to qualify.

By now the designs were getting very adventurous, with piano keys up the sleeve for a musical person for instance, letters and other motifs. My DH has one with an Alfa Romeo symbol on the front, which is toasty warm and he wears all the time when he's working outdoors. There are some child ones in the collection, and a few hats just for fun.

I should mention that they're knitted without a safety net, I mean, a pattern, it's all done on the fly. When sleeves get too short on growing boys, just rip back the cuffs and knit in an extension. Too tight in the torso? Just unpick stitches under the arm and insert a gusset. Didn't I say this is a fearless knitter! Many's the time I've seen crafty and intriguing knit-fixes on the internet or in books and thought...Ah, sure my Dad can do that!

Anyhow, I wanted to introduce you to the Joseph Jumper. Watch out for others coming your way.

By the way, if you're wondering what colour love is, it's Technicolour. And it's Amazing.

I've said it before.

And I'll say it again.

Lucky me.

Sailor Girl

This is a modified version of a little girl’s cardigan which I saw knitted up as a sample at the Knitting & Stitching Show at the RDS, Dublin, in 2006. I just HAD TO MAKE IT!!!! It's in Sublime Merino Silk Aran with a lovely drape and sheen.

Sidebar: I got the pattern and yarn from the Sadly Missed Wool Shop in Bray, Co. Wicklow. Sniff! A moment's silence please....



However.....

.....the original design was for plain stocking stitch all the way, and I knew it would drive me nuts and I might not finish it….horrors! As well as that, I thought Little Monkey would be more likely to wear it if she had a part in it, so we picked the edge pattern from Nicky Epstein’s book of edgings.



It was the hardest one in the book and it took a few weeks before I mastered it. (It’s also LOADED with bobbles - yeuch!) I added the vertical stripe of yarn overs just for interest. It might be a bit overkill, but I like it. The yarn is lovely, silky soft and no pilling at all. A bit splitty, but worth it.





There were some tricky moments. As I was missing the moss-stitch edging from the original, I improvised a cable edging to run along the sides of the collar and turn into the ties. Works well I think.

A friend supplied the perfect buttons. See, you should look in other people’s stashes more often. And yes, she does wear it…sometimes. Little Monkey that is, not my button friend. Thank Goodness Little Mouse (DD2) can wear it too so I’ve an excuse to keep it when Little Monkey grows out of it! Any day now...




(Yes, I know the photos are dreadful, sorry, I did me best.)



On the other hand, don't ye like my Habitat tablecloth? Makes a nice backdrop methinks.

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Manos del Uruguay

On Friday I paid a visit to The Yarn Room at their HQ in Moneystown Co. Wicklow, which just happens to be only 3 or 4 miles from where I live. I had a lovely visit with Stephanie, knitter and proprieter, which included tea, toast and lots of knitting talk. Fab.

I had a happy hour or so fondling and oogling soberly assessing the yarn and naturally, I came away with more for the stash. It's this baby, above. Manos del Uruguay Silk Blend in Red. Scrumptious. It looks like a really good weight for a lace wrap/scarf that I'm planning.

And besides then there's this...

Believe me, I don't do hats...and they don't do me. But Stephanie had this little beauty made for herself (in green) so I was able to try it on. It looked and felt lovely, and I think it's not the worst hat style for my particular head. And yes, I've cast on already and I'm 2 or 3 inches into it.

(I did have some problems with the pattern, but that's for another post.)

Funny enough, that was the same day that Aileen posted her very own beret pattern. Must have been something in the air. Go check it out. Doesn't it and she look just beautiful? Think I'll have to make one of these sometime also.

I got some of these also, and I'm delighted with them. I don't know if they're tough enough to live in my house however, since Little Monkey used one to open some (light) plastic wrapping yesterday and it snapped like a twig*. You should have seen her trying to hold both pieces in the same hand in a straight line so I wouln't realise what had happened. Very funny.

So...new project...new yarn...new needles. What's not to love?

(Yes, Ed. I know I have other projects to finish. Just shaddup! You want me to tell the people what you were doing Saturday night? Yeah right. I didn't think so.)

*Edited to Add: HAH! Of course it 'snapped like a twig'. It IS a twig!